Learning to Live in the After
by AJuneRose
Summary: A slightly AU (Only because I ship Mer/Alex and I've filled in some scenes I wished we could see on the show) story from Meredith's POV, starting with Derek's death and following Meredith as she tries to outrun her pain, and ultimately heals, falls in love, and learns to live again. Some Mertina friendship, lots of angst, PTSD episodes, romance and of course slow burn MERLEX!
1. Chapter 1

This will be a slightly AU story (only because ships have changed and a few missing scenes that we don't get to see in the show have been filled in) from Meredith's point of view, starting from Derek's death and following her through life as she learns to live again. There will be some MerTina friendship, some Jackson/Mer friendship and lots of slow-burn Merlex! Rated T for now, and M as it progresses. As always, these characters aren't mine, they belong to ABC and the brilliant Shonda Rimes. I just like to play with them!

Chapter 1

Her hands shook, and her head spun, and her legs felt strange and weak like maybe they would refuse to support her weight for one more minute, but Meredith Grey kept walking, kept putting one weary foot in front of the other. After all, that's what she had done for as long as she could remember. No matter what terrible thing had happened to her or around her, she was always the one who kept moving, kept putting one foot in front of the other. _Derek is dead,_ her mind screamed at her, demanding her to understand, to feel, to face the awful reality. But she was numb to her grief, numb to the cold of the air conditioning that bit at her skin through her thin t-shirt and numb to the hospital's noises. She was numb to the curious eyes of the nurses that stared as she passed, and to the questioning murmur of voices around her. The higher functioning part of her brain knew that she must be in shock, but the rest of her thought this feeling of floating might be real, because she couldn't feel the floor under her sneakers. She turned the corner and walked unsteadily through the open door into the attendings' lounge, swaying on her feet and bracing one shaking hand against the door frame as she stopped just inside the room. The bitter aroma of coffee washed over her, and cheerful banter swirled incoherently around her as everyone continued with their conversations, with their lives; and it all felt so surreal. This had to be a terrible nightmare that she'd wake up from any moment. How could Derek be dead if the sun had still risen? How could people still be carrying conversations and drinking coffee and eating donuts? _Derek is dead,_ her mind insisted, and she knew it was true. But how could their world be business as usual, when her own had suddenly stopped turning and come crashing off its axis?

Maggie was the first to notice her sister standing there, and she asked a question that Meredith couldn't hear over the increasing volume of the ringing in her ears. Meredith tried to swallow past the painful tightness in her throat and voice the three words that she was still trying to fully grasp, that kept mercilessly repeating in her mind.

"Derek is dead." It came out as a hoarse whisper, and no one seemed to notice her. Disjointed pieces of childhood memories suddenly came spinning through her thoughts. Her mother crying. A carousel in the park. Her mother's voice. " _The carousel keeps turning and you can never get off. You can never get off."_

"Derek is dead." She repeats, louder this time. But her voice is raw and raspy from a night of yelling his name, and it's just enough to be heard, but not understood over the bustling volume of the room. Alex turns toward her, his initial smile of greeting quickly becoming a frown of concern as he takes in what she knows must be her haggard appearance, and Maggie finally notices Meredith has said something. "Sorry, what did you say?" She asks, at the same time as Meredith manages to gather the last of her rapidly fading strength. Their words overlap, but Meredith's forceful pronouncement "Derek is dead," rises above the mixture of voices and the room falls into a moment of stunned silence. It lasts just for the space of a breath, and then suddenly everyone is saying her name, asking her to explain. Her searching eyes find Alex's, and she sees his lips move and his hands outstretch toward her. She can read his lips, can tell that he's saying her name too, "Mer…" but she can hardly hear him. She can hardly hear any of them anymore over her mother's words playing like a broken record in her mind. _It's over, I guess. I don't know what I should do. I don't- I do. I do know, it's just hard for me to accept it._ They haunt her as much as they resonate with her: a constant soundtrack to her grief. _I've lost him. I've lost him, and I can never get him back._

The room begins to spin, faster and faster and Meredith feels like she's five years old again, back on that carousel in the park, and all she wants to do is get off. Her legs finally make good on their threat to buckle under her weight and her hand slips from the doorframe. Through the black spots swimming across her vision, she blurrily sees Alex lunge forward, and feels strong hands catch her, jerking her shoulders abruptly upward to keep her head from hitting the floor. It should be painful, but she's numb, and she thinks fleetingly that he should have just let her fall, she wouldn't have felt it anyway. The last thing she hears before the ringing in her ears takes over is the way that fear makes Alex's voice gruff as he responds to the panicked exclamations from the others. As her awareness of the room and its activity slowly ebbs, her vision fades to black and she welcomes the escape the darkness brings.

Chapter 2

The next few days pass in a blur, and Meredith feels as if she is just sleepwalking through them. Her house has become a constant revolving door of visitors, someone always arriving with food or leaving on an outing with the children to give her some peace as she makes what they all politely call "the arrangements." No matter the time of day or night, someone is always there. She knows it's not an accident that she is never alone, that Maggie and Alex and Arizona's schedules suddenly line up so smoothly that whenever one would leave her to start a shift, another would walk through the door after just finishing. She doesn't say it, but she's grateful. And she knows they know she is.

As the day of his funeral approaches, Meredith tries to remember to reach out past her own pain and shock and offer whatever comfort she can to Derek's favorite sister; the only one who seems to be feeling even a fraction of the all-consuming pain that's gutting her. But Amelia refuses to speak to her, refuses to leave her room. And at night, in the stillness after the kids have been tucked in and her friends have crashed on the couches or the floor, Meredith hears her sobbing through the thin walls of the guest room where she now spends her own sleepless nights. She knows Amelia blames her for Derek's death; blames her for not getting there quickly enough and for pulling the plug before she had her chance to say goodbye. Meredith quietly accepts the weight of her blame and adds it to the heavy guilt she already carries. She can't even enter her own room anymore. Everywhere she looks she sees Derek. The framed post it, the tumor drawn on the wall, his dirty shirt left lying on the floor by their bed- it all just hurts too much.

It's been five days, nearly a week, and she still hasn't been able to explain to the children what has happened. They still think their Daddy is in DC, and she just can't bring herself to introduce this terrible, relentless pain into their carefree lives. But Zola keeps asking why Daddy is missing their skype dates and Meredith knows that making the excuse that he's busy, or already asleep won't placate her daughter for much longer. She tries her hardest not to let Zo Zo and Bailey see her cry, she tries to hold it together for their sake until Alex shows up to take them to the park, leaving her with a parting glance of knowing concern. Or until Arizona comes, and contradicts her own red rimmed eyes with an overly cheerful tone of voice as she tells them they're going to get ice cream and have a sleepover with Sofia. But once her children are gone and the house is quiet, and all the necessary phone calls have been made, there's nothing left to be done. She's left alone with nothing to distract her from her thoughts and she can't hold the tears back anymore. Once she lets them, they fall like a torrent of grief and Meredith is afraid they might never stop. Great wracking sobs split her chest, and her throat feels so tight that she can't catch her breath. But even after an eternity, once her shoulders have stopped shaking, and her head pounds and she has no energy left to cry anymore, she still doesn't feel the release she was expecting. The weight on her chest hasn't lessened and the gaping emptiness she feels inside still consumes her.

That afternoon, she braves her room just long enough to grab Derek's pillow off the bed and bring it to the guest room with her. She lays her aching head on it and breathes deeply and as she had hoped, it still smells faintly of him. For the first time since his death, she must fall into a restless sleep, because long shadows have fallen across the room and the sun is setting outside the window when she hears her door creak softly open. Meredith keeps her eyes shut and her back to the door, not ready to leave this moment of peace, hoping whoever it is will leave her alone in it. But quiet footfalls move across the floor toward her, and after a brief hesitation, Meredith feels the mattress dip slightly as someone sits down. "Mer…?" They whisper, and she sighs and reluctantly rolls to face the intruder. Warm brown eyes meet her own bloodshot gaze, and Meredith gasps as grateful tears spring to her eyes. "But your hospital!" she whispers in halfhearted protest. Cristina's already compassionate expression softens even more at her friend's tears, and Meredith suddenly finds herself wrapped firmly within slender arms, her face pressed into a waterfall of dark curls that tickle her nose. "Shut up," comes the answering whisper against her ear, the tenderness in Cristina's tone a contradiction to her words. "I'm your person."

Meredith doesn't try to stifle her grief now, allowing herself weep silently. She slowly soaks Cristina's shirt and Derek's pillow, but neither woman says anything else. They couldn't dance it out this time. Cristina couldn't fix it, but she would be there. And for the moment, that's enough. Eventually, Meredith's tears run dry again and she falls back into an exhausted sleep.


	2. Chapter 3

Author's note: I borrowed some dialogue here from episode 11x22 "She's leaving home part 1". As always, everything belongs to ABC and the amazing Shonda Rhimes!

Chapter 3

The day of Derek's funeral dawned dark and cold, the weather a fitting backdrop to the somber occasion, and in true Seattle form, the rain fell in driving sheets. The house was still and quiet, all its occupants sound asleep except for one. Meredith stood silent and unmoving in the darkness of the living room, staring unseeingly out at the rain falling against the window pane. The small amount of fitful rest she'd managed in Cristina's arms had ended just after midnight, when the dreamless sleep of exhaustion had given way to nightmares. Cristina, undoubtedly jet lagged after her rushed journey from Switzerland back to Seattle, hadn't even stirred as Meredith had climbed out of bed and stumbled urgently to the toilet to empty her stomach of the few small bites of food that Alex had been able to coax her into eating the day before. But even collapsed on the cold tile floor of the bathroom afterward, spent and trembling, she couldn't escape the nightmare that had woken her. Its horror followed her, bleeding over into her waking hours, and she was beginning to understand that awake or asleep, there would be no difference. Derek would still be gone, and this was a nightmare from which she would never, ever wake up.

She wouldn't sleep again until exhaustion forced her body and mind to shut down, but not wanting to disturb Cristina, Meredith had left the room and wandered aimlessly down the hall. And this was where she had ended up: watching the rain fall through the picture window that her husband had built. "Dead husband", she corrected herself aloud, voice gravelly from disuse and loud in the quiet of the early morning. But she felt no emotional reaction to the harsh finality of her words. The shroud of numbness that had enveloped her since the day that she'd lost him still hadn't lifted. Suddenly, the confinement of the house that she hadn't left in days felt stifling and her lungs craved fresh air. Her feet seemed to belong to someone else as they carried her tumultuously out the front door and down the steps of the porch, stumbling to a stop halfway down the un paved driveway. She stood there, barefoot on the sharp gravel, wearing the same t shirt she hadn't bothered to change out of all week, letting the pounding rain soak her greasy hair and hoping that the cold of the water would be cleansing, hoping it wash away the suffocating numbness. Time fell away while Meredith simply breathed, staring into the sky as thunder rolled somewhere in the distance and lightning periodically flickered overhead, until she shook with cold, and the horizon was beginning to lighten, and Maggie's worried voice called her back to the house.

The rest of the morning passed in a haze of solemn preparation as friends and family began to help prepare the house for the wake. Meredith noticed the worried glances Alex and Arizona exchanged at her wet hair and clothes, and the way Cristina didn't even attempt to disguise the open concern on her face, hovering never more than an arm's length from her side until it was time to get dressed for the ceremony. But she was still sick to her stomach, and too emotionally and mentally exhausted after the sleepless night to make any effort for their sakes.

After a lunch that she couldn't force herself to eat, Meredith slipped away from the crowd and up the stairs to change out of her wet and dirty clothing into something more appropriate for her husband's burial.

As she passed Amelia's room she paused. The door was closed, it always was now; but she could hear faint sounds of movement inside- a chair scraping, drawers thumping open and shut. As Meredith stood there hesitantly, a half-forgotten memory crept back into her mind. She and Amelia had been arguing again. Over what, she couldn't remember now. But she did remember the heaviness in Amelia's voice, and the emotion in her words. "You don't know me." She had declared. "You don't know where I've been or what I've had to overcome, because you have never had to. You've never lost the love of your life. You've never cried over the dead body of the person you loved most in this world. You don't know how that messes a person up." Her mind transported her back to that unfamiliar hospital room where just a week ago tears had blinded her as she had laid her head on the chest of the only man she'd ever loved for the last time and said her goodbyes.

… _Derek, it's ok. Derek, you go. We'll be fine…_

Meredith swiped at silent tears as she pulled her mind back to the present. She and Amelia had never been close; Meredith was terrible at the whole family thing and to be honest, Amelia often rubbed her the wrong way. But now, she felt like a piece of Derek to hold onto, like the only one who might be able to help her pull herself of out the pain enough to survive. She lifted one hand and briefly entertained the thought of knocking on the closed door. But for the past week Amelia had been keeping herself afloat by turning all her grief into anger at Meredith, and it was just too soon, too raw for them to have a meaningful conversation. Meredith wasn't even sure how to put into words what she had been thinking. With a weary sigh, she forced her unwilling feet to walk the rest of the way down the hall and into her bedroom. All she wanted was for this day to be over. All she wanted was to have Derek back.

She rested her pounding head in her hands for a moment before getting up and walking to the big double closet. Carefully keeping her back turned to the side of the closet that held all of Derek's clothes, Meredith began to flip methodically through her collection of dresses. She pulled the first black dress she saw from the rack, and then froze, her fingers clutching at the cool silk. It was the same dress she had worn to the hospital prom years ago, full of sparkles and memories of her exam room tryst with Derek. The sharp stab of realization that they would never have a moment like that again cut her heart like a knife and she stifled a sob. Shakily, she reached out and hung the dress back up, quickly pushing other dresses against it until she couldn't see the material anymore. The next black dress she found didn't trigger any painful memories, and she wearily slipped it on.

Meredith was staring dully at her reflection in the mirror when Cristina entered the room and walked up behind her. "Hey" she greeted softly.

"I look awful." Was Meredith's emotionless reply. She hadn't looked in a mirror in a week, and now she hardly recognized the wrecked woman staring back at her. The black of her dress made her pale skin appear translucent, and the dark circles beneath her bloodshot eyes were deep purple bruises. And she had lost weight, she realized indifferently. Her cheekbones and collarbones stood out too sharply, and the dress hung loosely where it should have hugged soft curves of her chest. Meredith lifted her eyes to Cristina's reflection in the mirror behind her. The Asian woman was already dressed, looking beautiful and somber in a black pantsuit and low heels. Her expressive almond eyes were full of sympathy and they watered as they met Meredith's gaze. Cristina didn't reply to Meredith's statement, instead she simply reached out to finish zipping the back of her friend's dress and fidget with one of her straps, running her hand compassionately down her back as she finished. "Come on, let me do something with your hair."

Meredith allowed herself to be guided into the bathroom and stood passively while Cristina took some dry shampoo and hairspray to her unwashed hair and managed to tame it into a respectable ponytail. She used a touch of concealer to lighten the circles of exhaustion under Meredith's red rimmed eyes, and blush to add some color back into her pale cheeks. Once she had finished, Meredith felt a little less vulnerable. The slight makeup did just enough to make her feel that her own personal grief would no longer on display for everyone who caught a glimpse of her face. Cristina left the room and returned with a pair of low heels for Meredith to wear, and she slipped them on robotically. "Are you ready, Mer?" She asked softly, one hand hovering over the doorknob.

No, she wasn't ready. Externally Meredith nodded, but inside she screamed and cried and raged at the unfairness of the universe. How could this be happening? It was too soon! They were supposed to have a lifetime!

… _I want to die when I'm 110 years old in your arms.._.

She could still hear their elevator conversation and the exact tone of Derek's voice in her mind as if it had happened just yesterday. "I'm sorry," she whispered to him over and over like a prayer as Cristina looped an arm through hers and supported her down the stairs. "I'm so sorry."

The ride to the cemetary passed too quickly and before she was prepared, it was time to leave the safe silence of the car and publicly say goodbye to the love of her life. Meredith gripped Zola's tiny hand protectively and pulled her closer to her side as she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, to keep walking toward the last place in the world she wanted to be. She felt like she was wandering through a thick fog, confused and lost. Just a week ago, Derek had been alive. Her children had a daddy. She'd been in love; they'd been happy. And today she was here, reeling in front of his casket: a 40-year-old widow preparing to bury the love of her life while her young daughter watched with wide, confused eyes. Bailey was too young to understand any of this, but Meredith had wanted Zola to have the chance to say goodbye. So, she'd finally told her that morning that her Daddy wasn't coming back, that there had been an accident and he had died. It had been unimaginable. Even as she'd knelt next to her sobbing little girl, Derek's princess, and had tried to explain what 'dead' meant, she couldn't believe it was really happening. If she had let herself fully realize the moment and its tragedy she knew she would have shattered into a million tiny pieces. So, she hadn't let herself think that Derek would never walk Zola down the aisle, or that soon all Zola's memories of her daddy's smile and his favorite nicknames for her, of their princess tea parties and the blue of his eyes would come only from pictures and the stories Meredith herself would tell. If she had, she would never have made it through the conversation. She needed to be strong for Zola, so Meredith had found herself sliding easily back into the same facial expressions and tone of voice that she had been taught to use with bereaved family members when one of her patients didn't make it through surgery. The familiar detachment felt comfortable and safe. It had allowed her to make it through the devastating conversation she'd never expected to have with her 5-year-old little girl, and as she reached the gravesite and stood silently next to Derek's weeping mother, Meredith hoped it would get her through this service as well.

She stood stoicly through the ministers' words, Miranda's poem, and the song by the Clash that two of Derek's sisters tearfully sang. When they had finished, and the minister asked if she would like to say anything she shook her head. She'd already said her goodbyes, and she still told him every night how much she loved him. Meredith didn't believe in heaven, but Derek had. And here in the after, without him, it comforted her a tiny bit to think that maybe he had been right, that maybe he could hear her.

Too soon it was time. The heavy mahogany casket was lowered slowly into the ground, and everyone looked to Meredith, waiting. When she didn't move, Alex placed a gentle hand on the small of her back and walked with her through the rain to the mound of soft dirt. The small handful she grabbed felt heavy in her hand. Meredith kissed her closed fist before slowly stretching out her arm and letting the soil filter through her fingers and onto the casket below. She stepped back and watched as Carolyn Shepherd and each of her daughters dropped their own handfuls of ground onto the casket and whispered private goodbyes to their son, to their brother. Amelia was the last to pay her respects. The smoldering anger in her eyes as she met and held Meredith's gaze seemed to physically burn, but Meredith couldn't bring herself to look away. She stood there, paralyzed, absorbing the weight of Amelia's grief and pain and blame that a part of her whispered was justified, that she deserved.

There was one more song, and then Meredith gently nudged Zola forward. Pulling a daisy from one of the floral arrangements, she placed it in her little hand, and the tears she'd managed to keep successfully hidden behind her mask of detachment now began to flow freely as the little girl imitated her mother's gesture- kissing the flower before letting it float down into the grave.

After the short service, everyone slowly made their way through the wet grass to the cars that were waiting to take them back to the house, and Meredith moved to follow until Cristina's hand caught her wrist and held her back. "Mer," she began gently, one hand absently reaching up to smooth back a wisp of hair that the wind had freed from her friend's ponytail. "Mer, I'm so sorry. Shane called, I..." She trailed off with a look of distress as Meredith became aware that she was crying, that there were tears running off her chin again. "I have to get back to Zurich. There's a grant I've been trying to land for the last year, and the panel that decides who gets the money arrived a day early. This would be instrumental to the hospital. It could fully fund my research in..." Meredith didn't hear the rest of her friend's explanation and when Cristina had finished speaking, she couldn't respond; she suddenly couldn't seem to stop sobbing. She'd always thought it would her and Cristina until the end, but now everyone was leaving, and everyone was dying. And just like with Lexie, with George, with _Derek_... She was out of time.

Cristina gripped Meredith in a fierce hug as she continued to sob, and Meredith felt a few of her friend's tears fall onto her neck. The rest of the departing mourners gave the two women the courtesy a wide berth, and they shared a moment in the privacy of the now nearly empty cemetery. Cristina's hands rubbed Meredith's back then stroked her hair, until her shoulders stopped shaking and she caught her breath. "I'm just a phone call away," Cristina said softly, stepping back so she could look into her person's eyes. "Call me anytime and screw the time difference." Meredith nodded. She understood how important this grant would be, not just to her friend's hospital, but also to the future of medicine. She had always loved Cristina for her drive, and she was always the one cheering the loudest for each of her accomplishments. But standing there in the rain by her husband's fresh grave, as she forced herself to release her death grip on Cristina's hand and watch her person step into a waiting taxi, Meredith had never felt so alone.

At the wake, she sat unresponsively on the couch, barely holding it together, there but not there. The room was blurry and out of focus. Her body was present, surrounded by familiar and unfamiliar people dressed in black clothes, carrying white flowers and nodding as they each told her how sorry they were for her loss, but her mind was untethered, drifting far away. She was 5 years old again on that carousel in the park, spinning and spinning but never able to get off. The hands that brushed her shoulders in condolence belonged to Jackson, to Miranda, to Callie, and at the same time to the nurse in a Boston ER years ago who had come to tell a terrified little girl sitting all alone except for her favorite doll, that she had saved her mother's life. Time seemed to pass all at once and not at all, and Meredith was both aware of it and outside of it. The children were worn out from all the emotion and activity, and Callie and Arizona stepped in to bathe and put them to bed early so that Meredith didn't have to leave the wake. But eventually, her friends' lives had to go on. Callie left for work and Arizona left to get back to their own daughter. A while later Alex rushed up and took her hand, absentmindedly massaging her palm with his fingers as he apologized profusely but explained that he had to go and that Maggie was starting her shift and would give him a ride. Meredith watched his lips move without comprehending what he was saying to her. She managed to concentrate enough to catch something about a post-op patient that had developed some kind of complication, and then he was dropping her hand and kissing her cheek and promising to be back as quickly as he could. Amelia left to drive the rest of the Shepherd family back to their hotel; none of them bothered to find Meredith or to say goodbye. She forced herself to stand in acknowledgment when the rest of her guests began to file out as well, whispering quiet "thank you"s in response to their parting condolences. But in her mind's eye, as she watched, their departing backs became a young Richard, and she was just a child confused by her mother's tears and lonely even in the crowded park. They became Thatcher, and all over again she was the heartbroken little daughter he had abandoned to start over with a second family. They became Derek, storming out in anger after she had argued with him about the job in DC. And as they drove away, the backs of their heads were suddenly Cristina's dark curls through the window of the taxi that would take her back to the airport, leaving her person all alone at the other end of the world. As she closed the door and stood frozen in the now silent foyer of her empty house, Meredith felt the tidal wave of memories come crashing down on her at once: years of pain and loneliness and confusion and abandonment pulling her under, spinning her head over heels until she couldn't breathe, didn't know which way was up. And all at once she knew she would drown if she stayed still. So, she did what she knew how to do, she ran.

Meredith ran through the house in frenzied activity, pausing only to scribble one short line on a leftover cocktail napkin and pin it to the fridge with one of Zola's alphabet magnets. She knew Alex would find it eventually.

From the linen closet in the hall, she pulled two small suitcases. She filled them haphazardly, with the first toys she touched and whatever clothes were sitting in the laundry room, washed and not yet put away. She entered her own room just long enough to blindly grab a few pairs of shoes and a toothbrush, careful not to look at the post- it hanging over the bed, or the tumor painted across the wall, or Derek's sky blue tie left lying neatly on the dresser, as if at any moment he'd come walking in from the bathroom and ask her to help him put it on.

"Come on, Bailey." she murmured. "Come with Mommy." The sleeping toddler whimpered as he was pulled up out of bed and into his mother's arms, but Meredith gently shushed him and continued to Zola's room _. "Meredith, wake up."_ Her mother's voice called to her from the past, echoing in her head as she whispered into the darkness of her daughter's room,

"Zo-Zo honey, wake up". She felt a powerful sense of Deja vu as she bundled her own half-awake daughter gently into her shoes and coat, and the past overlapped with present in her mind. She was Ellis Grey, and Zola became 5-year-old Meredith: pulled roughly out of bed without shoes or a coat and rushed to a waiting taxi. She swallowed hard as she stood and took Zola's hand. The memory of her childhood anatomy Jane doll left lying forgotten on the dining room table during Ellis's panicked midnight flight broke through Meredith's jumbled thoughts and she took the time as they crossed through the living room to make sure Zola grabbed her own favorite doll.

"Ok, you ready?" She asked breathlessly, setting down the bags she carried to hastily lock the front door.

"Mommy." She looked up at the sound of Zola's tiny voice and found her younger self still haunting her, reflected in her daughter's confused gaze and in her innocent question, "Mommy, where are we going?" 5-year-old Meredith hadn't received any answer to her questions, and she made sure now to answer her own daughter with compassion. "Away, sweetie. We're going away." Meredith hefted Bailey a little higher on her hip and took hold of the suitcase handles once more before stepping off the front porch and into the night.

"Come on, Zo Zo, it's time to go."


	3. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Alex's POV

Riding home from Grey Sloan in the back of an uber at 3 am the next morning, Alex was lost in thought. His post op patient had needed emergency surgery, and by the time he'd scrubbed out, it was morning and his shift had already begun. After the emotional ordeal of Derek's funeral, then a night spent on call followed by a 12-hour shift, all he wanted to do was fall into bed and sleep for a year. But even as exhausted as he was, his mind wouldn't stop racing. As he directed the driver to turn off the highway and take the familiar turn to Meredith's house, he felt a twinge of guilt at not going home to Jo, whom he'd seen for probably all of 10 minutes in the craziness of the past week, but his thoughts kept coming back to Meredith and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep until he'd checked in on her. He hadn't been able to let his friend out of his sight without tremendous anxiety since she had come stumbling through the doors of the attending's lounge over a week ago, looking like a zombie, and announced in a strange, robotic voice that Derek was dead. The sight of her slight frame falling as she passed out, and the way her head had lolled limply to the side before he had barely managed to catch her seemed seared into his mind, coming back to haunt him again now in this moment of quiet. He'd stayed by the side of Meredith's hospital bed until she'd regained consciousness, inserting an IV line to treat her severe dehydration and offering whatever emotional support he could amid his own stunned confusion. Seeing her so upset: trembling and sobbing and clearly in shock- had wrecked him with an intensity he hadn't anticipated. It had been excruciating to listen to Mer's gasping sobs and not be able to do a freaking thing to fix it. Feeling so powerless to help her gutted him. But remembering apprehensively for the millionth time in the last 24 hours how catatonic Meredith had seemed when he'd left, Alex almost wished for that open grief again instead of the hollow emptiness that now lived in her eyes. At the wake, since Meredith had made no move to leave the couch or interact with anyone, Alex had stepped up to host in her stead. He'd cast worried glances her way as he helped Maggie direct the caterers, shook hands and accepted condolences on Meredith's behalf, and ran interference between her and all the well-meaning people whose sympathy he knew would just further overwhelm her. When he had gotten the call from the hospital that his patient had thrown a clot and he was needed in surgery, he'd cursed to himself. Then he'd cursed Cristina.

Alex had face timed Cristina that first day in the hospital, while he was still waiting for Meredith to wake up and begged her to come back to Seattle. Cristina's eyes had been wide and sympathetic as he'd turned the screen so she could see Meredith resting in the hospital bed, but her tone had been apologetic as she had fed him some excuse about a committee she had to meet and how she didn't do plane travel anymore. But Alex had angrily insisted. "Did you not hear what I said? Shepherd is dead! Yang, she calls you her person. Forget the stupid committee and listen to me, this is the kind of crap you do for your person! If it were you, if something had happened to Owen? You know Mer would be on a plane to Zurich in a heartbeat, even if she had to drug herself from takeoff to touchdown. So you can take a freaking Xanax and sleep the whole way if it helps, but you have to come. You have to be here for her." Alex knew with conviction that his words were true. Meredith was the most loyal person he'd ever met, and she'd do anything for the people who were lucky enough to be considered her family; it was one of the things he loved most about her. If their roles were reversed, he knew Mer would have dropped everything for her friend. And yet, it had still taken Cristina the better part of the week to get on a flight. Alex's jaw clenched, and he scoffed at the memory, causing his driver to give him the side eye in the rear-view mirror, which Alex ignored, lost in his thoughts. Meredith had seemed to be doing a little bit better while Cristina had been with her, and he'd been relieved to see her finally sleep and let him coax her into eating half a bagel. Then Cristina had left, and ever since Meredith had been spiraling. He'd been livid at Cristina when he'd noticed Meredith wasn't following him and Zola and turned in time to see her step into a taxi, leaving Mer standing alone in the middle of the cemetery, staring after her with a lost, vacant gaze that unnerved him. That same gaze had still been there when he'd crouched in front of her at the wake and took her hand to explain that he had to go to work, and the thought of leaving her had settled like a brick in his stomach, heavy and foreboding. Alex shifted uneasily in his seat. He felt it still, and his worry for his friend and the guilt he felt over leaving her made the 30-minute car ride to Meredith's house seem interminable. But he'd had no choice, Alex tried to reason with himself. He'd had to go. A child had been dying and it was his job to not let that happen. So, he'd kissed her cheek and promised to be back soon.

The car pulled up in front of Meredith's unmowed lawn and Alex pulled himself from his anxious thoughts long enough to throw a quick, "Thanks, man" in his driver's direction before he opened the door and jumped out of the car, not bothering to wait for it to stop moving. He was up the front walk of the dream house in 4 long strides, relief that he was back lessening some of the tension in his shoulders as he pulled the spare key from under the mat to unlock the door and walked into the quiet house. At first, when Alex didn't see Meredith on the couch where he had expected her to be, he was glad. He remembered with a frown of concern how prominent the dark rings of exhaustion around her eyes had been lately. Maybe she had been able to fall asleep and was getting some much-needed rest. Alex kicked his shoes off in the entrance to the living room so his footsteps wouldn't echo so loudly and headed upstairs to look in on Bailey and Zola. He hadn't agreed with Meredith's decision to take Zola with them to funeral, he had been worried that the whole thing would just confuse and scare the innocent little girl. But Zo- Zo had surprised him once again with her intelligence and strength, he thought with a sad smile. He was so proud of her. And he knew that if there was an afterlife, if Derek was looking down from Heaven watching over them or whatever- like April had said in her tribute- then Derek was proud too. He turned the knob slowly and the door to Zola's bedroom opened with a gentle creak. Alex poked his head inside, expecting to see her little body tucked cozily under her pink paw patrol blanket like usual. But a jolt of panic ran through him like an electric shock as he saw the blanket was lying on the ground and the little bed was empty. Alex noticed clothes and shoes scattered chaotically across the floor and suddenly grabbed the door frame he'd been casually leaning on for dear life. The weight of fear that had been sitting in the pit of his stomach since he'd left for the hospital the day before grew even heavier, and he felt his breath begin to come in shallow gasps. Whirling around, he rushed down the hall to the nursery and threw the door open, no longer concerned with quiet. A quick glance around the room revealed Bailey's empty crib, and another room in disarray. "No. No." The words began as a breathless whisper and grew louder as he fought a growing sense of dread. "No, no, no. Mer? Mer!" Alex shouted her name and turned to run back down the stairs, stumbling and nearly falling in his haste. He tried to take deep breaths, tried to tell himself that they were all just in the guest bedroom because Mer didn't want to be alone, but he knew it would be empty before he even reached the open door and saw the untouched bed. "Mer? Meredith!" He turned and ran outside, shouting her name and the children's names as he went, not caring if he woke the neighbors. "Zola! Bailey! Meredith!" The driveway was empty, she had taken her car. Alex could hear the naked fear in his voice as it echoed through the stillness of the early morning fog. But there were no answering shouts, Meredith didn't come running out of the house to hiss at him to shut up before he woke the whole neighborhood.

Alex ran a trembling hand through his hair, unsure of what to do next. Pulling his phone out of his back pocket, he quickly dialed her number from memory and waited hopefully as it rang. "Come on, Mer!" He grunted when the only answer he got was her voicemail. "Hello, you've reached Doctor Meredith Grey. I'm sorry I can't take your call...' He hung up before the recording could finish and immediately dialed her number again, and again and again, but each time it went straight to voicemail. Angrily, he threw his phone across the lawn, and heard it clatter on the cement driveway. His head spun, and his heart pounded with conflicting emotions, as he turned and walked slowly back into the abandoned house. He crossed the kitchen to the still- full fridge and pulled out a beer. One wouldn't be nearly enough tonight, but it was a start. As he closed the door of the fridge, Meredith's messy handwriting caught his eye. He snatched the cocktail napkin from its spot under the magnet and read the single line in seconds. "The kids and I are safe". That was all it said. The adrenaline slowly drained out of him and with it, the strength to keep standing. Alex sank to the floor with his back against the fridge and took a long swallow from the bottle in his hand. He knew what the note meant. Meredith was doing what she did best- she was running away. She was leaving Seattle and its painful memories behind; leaving him behind too. To stifle a sob, Alex took another swig of his beer. Everyone that he'd loved and trusted had left him at some point in his life. He cursed under his breath and rested his head against the cold surface of the fridge as unbidden, his mind dredged up long buried memories of his abusive dad, his schizophrenic mom, of Izzie, of Ava. Now he could add Meredith to that list too.

Strong waves of anger and frustration and betrayal swept over him one by one as he sat there on the kitchen tile, defiantly refusing to let the tears that threatened spill over. As he neared the bottom of the bottle of beer, his anger slowly turned to guilt, his betrayal to shame and the frustration he felt at Meredith turned to frustration at himself. It was easier to blame himself than accept the truth that this was just his friend's coping method. This was all his fault; how could he have left her? He knew Meredith better than anyone, he'd known she had been spiraling, he'd seen it and yet he'd left her alone. He'd ignored the feeling in the pit of his stomach that had warned him to stay, to not let her out of his sight, and now she and the kids were gone. His family was gone, and he had no idea if he'd ever see them again. Alex slammed his head back against the fridge and relished the pain that stabbed his skull. He deserved that, he thought. He'd spent the whole day angry, blaming Cristina for leaving Mer alone when she'd been so fragile, and then he'd turned around and done the same thing. This was all his fault. She was the best thing he had, and he'd screwed it up, just like he screwed up every good thing that came his way. She'd designated him as her person, and he'd done a pretty crappy job. With a heavy sigh, Alex realized his beer was empty and he desperately needed another. He got up and walked back outside, locking the door of the house behind him and pocketing the spare key. Retrieving his phone from the driveway, he called a taxi to take him to Joe's. While he was waiting by the curb, watching the sky lighten he got a text from Jo. "You didn't come home last night. Are you with Meredith again?" He sighed and shut off the phone. A second later the screen lit up again as he received another text from his girlfriend. "Alex, are u ok?" He knew he should call Jo, he knew it was selfish of him to ignore her texts and leave her to worry. But what would he say to her, anyway? How would he explain the awful gaping hole that had been blown through his heart? He loved Jo, but she had never understood his relationship with Mer; she had always been insecure about the closeness of the bond they shared. Tonight, Alex just didn't have any emotional strength left to comfort her. It took everything he had just to keep his voice steady as he gave directions to his taxi driver. "Emerald City Bar. Across from Grey/Sloan Memorial."

An hour later, Alex was three pitchers of beer and 4 shots deep- tequila of course, in her honor. He still felt it- the brick in the pit of his stomach- the weight of the pain and the guilt and the relentless worry over where she was, if she and the kids were safe. But at least he couldn't focus on it anymore; he couldn't focus on anything anymore. He was floating on the buzz of the alcohol he'd consumed, and the world was spinning and a little blurry around the edges. "Hit me!" He slurred, sliding his empty shot glass back toward Joe. The bartender eyed him skeptically and shook his head, removing the shot glass instead of refilling it. "Sorry, Karev, I'm cutting you off."

"Screw you!" Alex tried to snarl threateningly and flip Joe off, but he felt like he had a mouth full of marbles and suddenly Joe had three heads and he couldn't pick which one to offend.

"That's ok, you can go ahead and give me the birdie. I think it's safe to say you won't remember this conversation tomorrow and we'll be good friends again. Is there someone I can call for you?"

Joe had walked around the bar to place a steadying hand on Alex's shoulder. The doctors from Grey/Sloan were his best customers and Derek Shepherd had saved his life once. Joe had been at Derek's funeral, and though he wasn't sure why Alex was here alone drowning his sorrows this morning, he guessed that it might have something to do with Dr. Shepherd's death. So he treated a grieving Alex with gruff compassion.

"360- 757-8906"

Even completely wasted, Alex rattled off the number by heart, not registering whom it belonged to until there was a long beep, and her recorded voice crackled over Joe's phone. "Hi, you've reached Doctor Meredith Grey. I'm sorry I can't answer your call..."

Her soft voice was as sobering as a bucket of freezing water poured over his head, and the sound of it brought all the pain he'd tried to drown rushing back, along with a sudden awareness of the pounding in his head. He ran a hand down his face, wincing at the beginning of what was certain to be a hell of a hangover tomorrow. Joe looked at him with an apologetic shrug.

"She's not answering, man. Anyone else I can try for you? Maybe your girlfriend?"

Wearily, Alex shook his head. He was too drained to try explaining to Jo why he was binge drinking in a bar at the crack of dawn rather than in bed at home with her. "No, thanks Joe. Just- call me a cab. I'll crash in an on-call room at the hospital and sleep it off."

As Joe nodded and turned back to the phone, Alex left a couple of $50s on the bar without waiting for his tab and walked unsteadily outside. The sun was beginning to rise over the horizon, and the whole alley behind the bar was cast in a rosy morning glow, but he couldn't appreciate the view. All Alex could think about as the sunlight hit his face was the way that it had reflected off Bailey's blond curls one morning when he'd taken the kids to the park, and turned them a blinding gold. The same color as his mother's hair, he thought morosely. Alex wondered if he would ever see Meredith again. Their friendship had spanned a decade; they'd been together since the beginning of their internships, and subconsciously he'd always kind of expected that it would just continue that way forever. After everything they had been through together, it seemed impossible to think that it could end like this.

Something Mer had said soon after Cristina had accepted her position in Switzerland drifted back into his mind as he stood there alone in the early morning chill. She'd been lying on a gurney in the tunnels after a long night of surgery, her eyes closed and her head on his knee as he rested against the wall. "Everyone's leaving. Everyone's dying." She'd whispered softly, and he'd recognized the words she'd shouted angrily at him in the SeaTac airport months before. "I always thought, at the end it would be me and Cristina. But, it's just the two of us now." She'd continued in a rare moment of vulnerability, endless grey eyes opening to meet his gaze. He'd seen the pain in her eyes and guessed she was referring to Cristina of course, and probably George and Lexie. His own mind conjured up a painful image of Izzie looking so beautiful on their wedding day. Desperate to lighten the mood, Alex rubbed her arm in awkward sympathy and replied gruffly, "Hey, it's the two of us against the world." She'd smiled a little at that, and her eyes had drifted shut again. He was sure Meredith had long since forgotten the conversation, but he never had. He'd meant what he said to her then; she was his family and as long as it was up to him, it was always going to be the two of them. Mer had recognized his toughness and indifference as an act, and had slowly gotten him to let her in, to take down the walls he'd built to keep people out, to keep himself from getting burned again. She made him a better person, and he never wanted to go back to the way it had been before her. But the universe always dealt him a crappy hand, and here he was, drunk at 6 am in an alley outside Joe's bar, yet again just Alex Karev against the world.


	4. Chapter 5

The only sound was the rumble of little Bailey's soft snoring as the headlights of Meredith's Lexus sedan sliced through the grey fog of the California dawn. Meredith gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles even though she had long ago set the car to cruise control and stared blankly ahead as the miles of empty highway rushed past. Time still seemed to be a strange, fluid thing and Meredith didn't know how long she'd been driving, only that the sun was beginning to rise now, and she'd stopped twice during the night to fill up with fuel. During her last stop she had grabbed a cheap gas station coffee and now she took a gulp of the bitter beverage without tasting it. She winced in pain as the hot liquid scalded her throat but took another sip immediately. She needed the caffeine to stay awake, and she hoped the pain might serve to keep her drifting mind anchored in the present. Meredith felt lost and untethered, she didn't know where she was heading or if she would ever get there. All she knew was the desperate, burning need pulsing in her chest with each heartbeat, driving her to put as much distance as she could between herself and the city that held so many dark memories of loss and grief. She glanced back at her sleeping children in the rear-view mirror and felt a stab of guilt pierce her like a physical pain. On the heels of the guilt followed Ellis's caustic voice once again, haunting her as it had ever since Derek had died. Meredith was beginning to worry that she might be losing her tenuous grip on sanity; surely there weren't many people who could hear their dead mother's voice as clearly as if she were sitting beside them in the passenger seat of their cars.

 _"You and I are the same, Meredith."_ Dead Ellis whispered in Meredith's mind.

Meredith shook her head to clear it and the whispers quieted but left in their place a blanket of doubt that settled around her shoulders with a suffocating heaviness, and she swallowed against a sudden wave of nausea. In her state of sleep deprivation and repressed emotional pain, she wasn't capable of seeing clearly all the little ways that she had been intentional about showing up and putting in the work to be the kind of warm and accepting mother to Zola and Bailey that she had always wished Ellis had been for her. Instead, her mind unearthed all the buried fears that she'd been avoiding for years and new ones that had surfaced during this this past difficult week: fear of her own insufficiency and that maybe she wasn't strong enough to be a single mother, fear that she would screw this up without Derek there to have her back, and most of all this relentless fear that Ellis' voice whispering ominously through her mind might be right after all. Meredith knew it was true that her own favorite coping mechanism was one she had learned from Ellis- how to run.

 _And isn't that exactly what I'm doing?_ She thought bitterly to herself _. I'm running away from the people and places I'm too weak to bring myself to face and teaching my children to do the same thing._ Meredith had been strong all day, but finally, the mental load seemed just too much to bear and she could no longer stifle the sobs that shook her slight shoulders. She blinked repeatedly to clear her vision from blinding tears, tightened her grip on the steering wheel once more and attempted to push the guilt and the fear and doubt away. In her mind's eye, dead Ellis raised a critical eyebrow at her from the passenger seat and Meredith glared in response, not caring how certifiably crazy it made her.

"Shut up. I'm not you", she hissed and turned her blurry gaze back to the road, setting her jaw. She refused to feel guilty for following her instincts and doing what was necessary to survive. She and the kids couldn't have endured months in Seattle, with Derek's ghost around every familiar corner and his fingerprints covering every detail of the beautiful dream house that he'd built. They needed space from the flood of memories and emotions that every condolence caused to come crashing in all over again. They needed a fresh start, time to breathe again. And Meredith needed time to try to force herself to face the reality that still felt so surreal: he had left her behind and now she would have to find a way to live in this bleak, lonely world where there was no more Derek.

"Mommy?" Zola's little voice floated up to the front of the car and Meredith realized that her sobbing hadn't been as quiet as she'd hoped. "Mommy, are you ok?" The little girl asked as her frightened eyes met Meredith's tearful gaze in the rearview mirror. Meredith swiped a quick hand down her wet cheeks and did her best to answer in a reassuring tone of voice.

"Yes, baby, everything's fine. Did Mommy wake you up?" Zola nodded silently, but kept her eyes fixed on Meredith's with a knowledge in her gaze that was far beyond her years.

"Are you crying for Daddy?" She asked in a quivering whisper, and when a fat tear ran down her daughter's face, Meredith couldn't stop her own eyes from misting again.

"Just a little bit, honey." She managed to choke out past the painful lump closing her throat. "I miss him."

"I miss him too." Zola confided softly, and for a brief moment Meredith allowed herself to weep for the unfairness of the loss that her innocent daughter should never have known. Then with a struggle, she swallowed hard and wiped her eyes and lifted her chin.

"It's ok to be sad, Zo Zo, you don't have to be afraid. Daddy was a special man and it's good that we miss him, it just means we know how much he loved us." Zola nodded, and Meredith forced herself to press into the kind of emotional discussion she had never been good at. "You know how much your Daddy loved you, right Zola?" Zola nodded again, seeming to be a little bit intimidated by the unusual intensity in her mother's voice, so Meredith just nodded in response and allowed the conversation to lapse naturally back into silence. Meredith knew she wasn't handling her own grief very healthfully, she was seeing freaking dead people and she couldn't remember the last time anything but burnt coffee had passed her lips; but she was determined to be available to help her children process their emotions and she would make damn sure that they came through this time in their lives well-adjusted and secure in their memories of their Daddy's love. A few moments later and a quick glance into the back of the now quiet car showed her that Zola had stopped crying and was peacefully looking out her window, watching the sun turn the sky pink. Meredith sighed in quiet relief and made sure the volume was low enough not to disturb a still sleeping Bailey before pressing play on a cd of alphabet songs that was Zola's current favorite.

Meredith drove for what must have been at least another hour lost in thought, with Zola's music providing a disparately light background for her somber mood, until flashing lights and sirens in the distance brought the present sharply back into focus. Meredith slammed on the brakes and skidded to an abrupt stop in response to the traffic cones that suddenly materialized out of the morning fog, blocking off several lanes of the highway. The lights of multiple police cars bathed the asphalt up ahead in eerie shades of blue and red, and caused an involuntary rush of adrenaline to course through her veins as dark memories came crashing back into her mind from the box where she'd been trying her hardest to keep them locked away. Immediately, she felt again the same sense of knowing dread that had crept up on her that night that was impossibly just a week ago, when she had answered a knock on her door to find those same colors washing over her face. The apologetic tenor of the policeman standing on her front step echoed through her mind again now, "Are you Meredith Grey? There's been an accident." Meredith felt her hands grow clammy and beads of sweat begin to form on her temples as she fought to stay grounded in the present, to keep from being swept away by the rushing force of the painful memory. The headlights of her sedan and the lights from the idling squad cars illuminated sparkling shards of glass scattered across the highway. _Probably a shattered windshield_ , she thought numbly, trying to find and focus on details to keep herself from panicking and losing control of the situation. There were wet patches too, that her brain at first glance identified as water or spilled oil. But the early morning air being pulled into the car through the air conditioning vent suddenly carried a familiar metallic smell along with the acrid odor of smoke and burnt rubber and she realized in stunned horror that the large puddle shining slickly in the lights was actually thick human blood. Even as her brain struggled to accept this realization, an officer crossed the road in front of her stopped car and began to empty bags of sand over the stain. With her breath now coming in shallow gasps, Meredith averted her eyes to escape the graphic view before her and faced her window instead. But rather than respite from the appalling scene and time to calm her racing heart, her wide eyes were met with the cause of the delay: a truck had crashed into the freeway's center divider and careened right through it, before colliding fatally with oncoming traffic. Slowly, Meredith's vision darkened and the world around her narrowed until the devastating scene in front of her comprised her entire reality. Meredith could still hear Zola's cd, but the deafening roaring that suddenly filled her ears made the song sound garbled and distant, and she felt like she was underwater. She struggled for oxygen against the tightness that unexpectedly clenched her throat and the crushing pressure constricting her chest that made it suddenly impossible to take a full breath. As she watched the paramedics extricating the driver from the wreckage, horrified but unable to tear her gaze away, she caught a glimpse of the man's dark curls, so similar to Derek's, and just like that she was gone, lost in the darkest nightmares her imagination could conjure of what that last day might have held for Derek. Reality and painful memory merged, and she was no longer able to distinguish between this man and her husband, or this accident and the one that had killed her children's father. Meredith felt a guttural, anguished scream slowly build inside of her from the roiling depth of grief that she'd kept hidden silently all week. Some higher functioning part of her brain knew that she was having a panic attack-she certainly wasn't a stranger to them- but that clinical knowledge was useless to make the terror and desperation that overwhelmed her feel any less real. She felt like she was drowning in the bay all over again, struggling to stay afloat under the crushing weight of icy water that stole her breath away and left her paralyzed and wondering if she might be about to join Derek in whatever afterlife would be waiting for her. Distantly, Meredith felt a burning in her throat and just barely registered that the raw, anguished screaming she could barely hear over the roaring in her ears must be coming from her.

"Mommy! Mommy!" That was Zola, surely frightened and confused by her mother's breakdown, and now she could faintly hear Bailey crying too. _Calm down_ , _Meredith, calm down_. She pleaded desperately with herself, longing to re-erect whatever mental dam had burst in her mind and allowed this flood of increasingly more horrifying images of Derek in various states of injury and death to rush in and drown her. The world spun and hyperventilation began to make her feel light-headed and dizzy. For a moment, she felt helpless and trapped in a prison of her own panic, blankly unable to remember any of the helpful coping strategies she'd learned in the past. Since having met Derek, she'd had only one panic attack, in the supply closet after coming face to face with her mother's mortality, but it hadn't escalated like this because Derek had been there to help her through it. _"Just breathe"_ she could almost hear his voice again now, soft and sympathetic, coaching her through the disorienting panic. _"Shh, It's alright. You're alright."_

Meredith grabbed hold of the memory, allowing the cadence of his voice and the image of his face and gentle blue eyes that floated to the forefront of her memory to block out the terrifying haze of her nightmares and lead her back to the present. She took slow, deep breaths, imagining the paper bag that he had handed her in that supply closet expanding and deflating. Gradually the roaring in her ears faded slightly, and she became aware of her surroundings again. The children were still wailing, and she was still trembling and panting and dizzy, but she was back on the highway in her car, and she could breathe again.

"Mommy." Sobbed Zola from the backseat.

"It's ok, honey, Mommy's ok." Meredith managed to offer her daughter a strangled reassurance before rolling down her window and vomiting gas station coffee all down the side of her car. Once her stomach was empty and she was only dry heaving, she felt weak but mentally a little clearer. Like she had lost not only the contents of her stomach but also some of the fog and numbness that she'd been wandering blindly around in since Derek had died. Shakily, she crawled over the center console and squeezed her even thinner than usual frame into the small space between her crying children's car seats.

"Oh Bailey, honey it's ok. Zola, sweetie, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Mommy's ok. It's ok." For a few breathless moments, Meredith murmured soft assurances and apologies as she wiped tears from chubby cheeks, kissed sweaty heads and squeezed little hands. Then finally, the officer directing traffic waved her impatiently forward and she crawled back into the driver's seat to pull onto the highway once more. They were all still shaken, and it was nearing breakfast time now, so Meredith decided to get donuts as a distraction and consolation for the trauma she'd unintentionally put them through.

"Who wants donuts?" She called in what she hoped was a cheerful voice and was unspeakably relieved to see Zo- Zo's sad expression change instantly to happy excitement. "With pink sprinkles!" The little girl exclaimed, clapping her hands, the events of the last hour eclipsed for now by the promise of her favorite pastries.

"Spwinkles!" Echoed Bailey gleefully, and with a grateful sigh at the chorus of excited chatter from the backseat, Meredith took the next exit toward San Diego. As they turned off the freeway, and she pulled out her phone to search for "donuts near me", she heard Zola squeal loudly.

"Mommy, what is that? It's so big!" Meredith glanced up to see the Pacific Ocean stretching out in front of them in an endless sparkling expanse, lined with yellow sand and tall palm trees, a beautiful shade of blue even under the grey skies caused by the marine layer.

"That's the beach, Zo-Zo!" Meredith answered her awed daughter.

"Please, can we go? Let's go to the beach!" Zola begged, and as Meredith stared out at the horizon she couldn't think of any reason why not. A lone sailboat floated far in the distance, similar to the ferry boats Derek had loved so much, and she felt a small measure of peace as she watched it glide slowly along.

"Sure, baby." Meredith murmured quietly to Zola, smiling softly as her gaze still followed the little sail boat's journey. "Let's go to the beach."


End file.
